By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent WASHINGTON, D.C. — Want to know more about the food-versus-fuel debate and the role ethanol plays? The National Corn Growers Assoc. (NCGA) has just launched a Food and Fuel Resource Center at its website to help the curious and befuddled.
“Corn growers are sick and tired of being accused of crimes against humanity and of causing starvation in Africa,” said Rick Tolman, the NCGA’s CEO, in a press release announcing the new webpages. “These statements are not only egregious and offensive, but they ignore the facts, and our resource center is one part of a truth campaign we’ve been waging for some time now.”
The new webpages include links to the latest research on corn ethanol issues, newspaper articles, official testimony before Congress, white papers, facts sheets, other relevant website links and more. This new resource promises to be up-to-date and positive about ethanol while offering strong responses to critics of the corn-based fuel.
At the Food and Fuel Resource Center homepage is a menu at the top with several choices.
One of them – the Info Center and Media Resources – contains 12 links under the following headings: News of the Day, Mediawatch, Our View, Publications, Releases, Presentations, Videos, Audio, News Industry, State News Roundup, Letters and Commentary.
Under News of the Day, at present 27 NCGA press releases are summarized going back to April, with links to full documents.
Under Mediawatch, links to 10 different items are included, notably an article in Time magazine by Michael Grunwald that is negative on ethanol, along with the NCGA’s response and a letter published in Time by Bruce Dale of Michigan State University, critiquing Grunwald’s article.
Under Publications, 25 links are provided. One example is a Fertilizer Webinar (full title is “Fertilizer Outlook: Supply and Demand Trends”) by Harry Vroomen of the Fertilizer Institute and Ken Nyiri of British Sulphur Consultants. Another is a one-page brochure called Five Truths About Corn and Food Prices.
Another menu, called Grower Resources, provides several links, such as “Biotech: Farmer to Farmer.” This page provides a summary of issues in biotechnology, especially opposition to its use in agriculture.
According to this page: “Farmer to Farmer is a concept developed by the membership of the National Corn Growers Assoc. to help farmers ensure they continue to have a wide range of technology options. This site provides materials that will allow growers in areas that may have legislation pending to restrict access to agricultural technology to offer a strong rebuttal based on sound science to the information put out by biotech opponents ... Despite the advantages that agricultural biotech offers to growers, there is serious opposition to the technology.”
The page also offers a link to the Maine Biotechnology Information Bureau.
Another menu choice is Key Issues, which includes several headings, including Biotechnology, Conservation, Ethanol and Co-products, Farm and Rural Development Programs, Livestock and several others.
There is a wealth of information at this website, and about food and ethanol issues throughout the entire NCGA site. Check it out at www.ncga.com/foodandfuel/foodandfuel.asp
This farm news was published in the May 21, 2008 issue of the Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. |
